


ghosts of happy endings

by imposterhuman



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony, Implied Relationships, Not A Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Team as Family, Tony Angst, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, sans tony, subtle but its there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 09:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18518764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imposterhuman/pseuds/imposterhuman
Summary: To Tony, the Compound was suspended in a moment, separate from the flow of time.There was a half-drunk coffee mug on the kitchen counter, like its owner would be back for it any minute. Someone had started to load the dishwasher, there were pans on the stove and the sugar was out.The building was empty, though, no matter what stories the rooms told. Natasha wasn’t coming back for her sweater, draped over the sofa. Steve wouldn’t return to get his sketchbook, or Wanda her jewelry, or Sam his book. Those things languished, almost forgotten, in the cold Compound.





	ghosts of happy endings

**Author's Note:**

> title from terra naomi's song of the same name (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apLaEeue3BQ)
> 
> its an angsty post-cw mood 
> 
> this is all angst because im in an angsty mood, also its 330 am so it might suck rip
> 
> enjoy!

To Tony, the Compound was suspended in a moment, separate from the flow of time. 

 

There was a half-drunk coffee mug on the kitchen counter, like its owner would be back for it any minute. Someone had started to load the dishwasher, there were pans on the stove and the sugar was out. 

 

The building was empty, though, no matter what stories the rooms told. Natasha wasn’t coming back for her sweater, draped over the sofa. Steve wouldn’t return to get his sketchbook, or Wanda her jewelry, or Sam his book. Those things languished, almost forgotten, in the cold Compound.

 

Tony wasn’t sure why he was there. He could self-flagellate just as well from Rhodey’s hospital bed, or Vision’s room in the Tower, or even the lab, filled with protection for a team who didn’t want him. He didn’t need to look for the remains of (not) his team in the home that was never for him. 

 

The kitchen’s perfect domesticity was marred by the gaping hole in the floor; Wanda had put Vision through the ground in her “escape”. Vision didn’t want to talk about it, so Tony didn’t push. 

 

Tony neatly sidestepped the hole, shoes leaving tracks in the dust and debris, marking his presence. The common room screamed  _ life,  _ screamed  _ love  _ and  _ family _ . He had never been in it before, not since he built the place. No one had invited him and he hadn’t asked. He didn’t stop, not to sit on well-worn couches, to imagine a different life where he could’ve sat there with a smile on his face.

 

He walked aimlessly, unconsciously making his way to the living quarters. His subconscious knew the way; he had designed the place, after all. The twisting corridors didn’t confuse him like they did the Avengers (there were hand-drawn signs on the walls, Steve’s design.  _ Conference room!  _ said one.  _ Bedrooms to the left,  _ said another. Tony was reminded forcefully of boarding school as a child. It had had the same kinds of signs so they children wouldn’t get lost). 

 

He skipped Wanda’s room entirely. He didn’t miss her, if he was being honest. She had fucked with his mind, his sanctuary, the only thing at last sacred. He wondered, idly, what Wakanda’s policies on mind rape were like.

 

Sam wasn’t his friend, either. Sure, he had invented the man’s entire claim to Avengerhood, had maintained the wings even though the project was scrapped (and he wondered if Sam knew  _ why _ . Humans weren’t meant to fly like birds; too many of the test pilots had crashed and burned for the military to consider the project viable. Tony had been ready to call it off after the first major injury, had put his foot down after the first death. Tony wondered if Sam knew that), but they weren’t friends. He closed Sam’s door without going in.

 

Vision’s room was empty; the android had done his own walkthrough of the ghost house, taking what was his and leaving the rest. 

 

Tony lingered at Natasha’s doorway. He could see the ballet shoes he bought for her in a corner gathering dust, next to a stockpile of weapons he had designed. She had a single photo on her nightstand; a group shot of the Avengers, after Tony’s retirement. The rest of her room was Spartan, empty. He wouldn’t find what he was looking for in it (and he didn’t know what he was looking for, anyway. Her reason for switching sides? It wasn’t written in the plaster walls). 

 

He almost left Steve’s door closed. There was nothing there for him, but some perverse curiosity had him going in. Did he keep a diary, where he detailed his lies to Tony? Did he have to write them down to keep them straight? 

 

What he found was worse.

 

On Steve’s bedside table, a sketchbook lay open and abandoned. In it, Steve had painstakingly drawn Tony’s likeness, He was smiling in the sketch, but Tony could recognize his press smile anywhere. Each line was careful, drawn with some indecipherable emotion (Tony didn't know enough about art to tell). He knew it wasn’t hate, though. 

 

Tony almost threw up. The confirmation, that Steve had cared about him and  _ still _ lied and put his father’s shield in his chest, was enough to send him to his knees. He had preferred to think that Steve had always disliked him; he could handle hate, he always had. Most people didn’t like him, after all. A person who hated him and hurt him, at least he could  _ understand _ .

 

But Steve had been his  _ friend.  _

 

His  _ friend _ , who had tried to kill him after lying about his mother’s murder. Who had smashed open the glass and metal of his heart and left him to freeze, to  _ die _ , without even a look back. Who had traded him as soon as something better came along. That friend.

 

His shoes tracked dirt into the military cleanliness of the room as he strode in, ice in his veins and his heart. He didn’t flip through the sketchbook, didn't count how many drawings were of him, even though what was still soft and forgiving wanted to. He closed it firmly and set it back down. 

 

He had been right; Steve’s room had nothing for him.

 

Tony didn’t go any further in the Compound. He turned on his heel retracing his path through the dust through the tears blurring his vision. He walked fast, chin high even though he felt like was breaking, even though there was no one to see. To make a lie believable, after all, he had to believe it himself. He wasn’t breaking, no. He repeated it, turned it over in his head until it fit.

 

The common room was colder than it had been when he walked through it first. He left the video game controllers on the table, left the blankets half folded and the pillows in disarray. It was like a funeral, for the ghosts of the idea of heroes, for the ghosts of the Avengers. Who was he to disturb the morbid ceremony?

 

When he left, stepping into the warm sunshine outside the building, he could almost hear the laughter of a family that wasn't his echoing through the empty building, one more ghost to add to his collection.

 

He stared at the Compound, stuck in a stagnant moment of happiness without the knowledge of what was to pass, and walked away from all that could have been and all that wasn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts?
> 
> your comments and kudos make me smile :)


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